Control ejection of ink drops to respective regions in the spittoon
AssigneeHewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
InventorsJeffrey Jay Anderson, Stuart Scofield
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method of maintaining nozzles of a printhead includes periodically moving a printhead having a plurality of nozzles toward a spittoon, and ejecting a plurality of sets of ink drops from the nozzles of the printhead to the spittoon mode. The method also includes controlling the ejecting of the plurality of sets of ink drops from the nozzles of the printhead to the spittoon by the control module. Consecutive sets of ink drops received by the spittoon are received by different sets of regions of the plurality of sets of regions within the spittoon.
Claims15
A method of maintaining nozzles of a printhead of a printing system, the method comprising:
- periodically moving a printhead having a plurality of nozzles toward a spittoon;
- ejecting a plurality of sets of ink drops from the nozzles of the printhead to the spittoon;
- identifying a plurality of sets of regions spaced apart from each other within the spittoon to receive respective sets of ink drops ejected from the printhead;
- and
- controlling the ejecting of the plurality of sets of ink drops from the nozzles of the printhead to the spittoon by the control module such that consecutive sets of ink drops received by the spittoon are received by different sets of regions of the plurality of sets of regions within the spittoon.
A printing system having a maintenance mode and a print mode, the printing system comprising:
- a spittoon;
- a printhead having a plurality of nozzles, the printhead to eject ink drops from the nozzles to the spittoon in the maintenance mode and to a substrate in the print mode;
- a carriage coupled to the printhead, the carriage to move the printhead toward the spittoon in the maintenance mode and in a print zone in the print mode;
- an identification module to identify a plurality of sets of regions within the spittoon to receive respective sets of ink drops ejected from the printhead in the maintenance mode, each set of regions including a plurality of regions;
- and
- a control module to control an order in which the ink drops ejected from the printhead in the maintenance mode are received at the plurality of sets of regions within the spittoon.
A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having computer executable instructions stored thereon to operate a printing system, the instructions are executable by a processor to:
- direct a carriage coupled to a printhead having a plurality of nozzles to periodically move toward a spittoon in a maintenance mode;
- direct the printhead to eject a plurality of sets of ink drops from the nozzles thereof to the spittoon in the a maintenance mode;
- and
- control the ejecting of the plurality of sets of ink drops from the nozzles of the printhead to the spittoon in the maintenance mode such that consecutive sets of ink drops received by the spittoon are received by different sets of regions of a plurality of sets of regions spaced apart from each other within the spittoon.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.